Blog 14

To start this big and scary final blog post, I'd like to thank Dr. Bent for not only creating a bearable English class for second-semester seniors but for also creating an English class that was enjoyable. Comparing this class to any others I’ve taken in the past, this one by far best bridges the gap between academics, and the real world in the sense that we were basically on our own 100% of the time… especially when it came to getting our projects set up, and done.

Next year I’m going to Sri Lanka for a few months, and to be perfectly honest I could not be more excited, or scared. And I think his class has helped me somewhat prepare for the whole “real world” deal we’re all about to get tossed into.

Overall, I enjoyed my project, and getting to see everyone else do their own thing. A challenge I defiantly faced was getting into contact with everyone, but for the most part, I think I recovered really well.
Something I could have done to improve the outcome is like I just mentioned, getting in contact with everyone. I should have set up some sort of google classroom thing or survey and have people sign up for time slots, and answer some questions about their projects.
I think during this exspirnce I’ve grown quite a bit as a person. I definitely got over my chronic fear of research papers, and had to learn to just get stuff done rather than procrastinating has my life away.
As far as risk taking goes, I’m all for it, and I think its super important for people to grow and learn. Using my gap year for example, probably somewhat risky being “let loose” on the other side of the world with zero supervision. But I know after I get home I’ll never be the same person again.
I think without any risk, there can not be any growth. In any situation.
And the difference between a good risk and bad risk is simply determining the potential growth or fall back you will gain from the outcome.

In this class, I think I pushed myself, being the center of attention has never been my favorite thing. And its hard not to be the center of attention when you’re walking through a classroom of middle schoolers trying to discreetly take pictures.
And honestly, I was surprised with how comfortable, and calm I was thought my entire project.

For me, this class was the perfect one to end my time at Pentucket with. I’ll forever be thankful for all I’ve learned here, the good and bad.  And I’ll never forget all of my classmates and teachers that helped me get through these past four years.

Blog 13

Although I obviously don't have any professional experience as a photographer, I do think for my level of formal education in this field I have an enough good understanding of it.
Even though we’ve all been working on these projects since January during the first week, I had a little bit of trouble getting off my feet. Especially since I can’t start my project until other people start theirs. So the first week went okay I guess, I didn’t take any pictures, unfortunately, but I did get a pretty good idea of what a few dfferent6 people are doing for their projects, so I guess I made some progress.

Blog 12

So from April 24th to May 17th, my project schedule is in the hands of everyone else in the class. I put my number on the board in the classroom for people to let me know when it would work best for me to get pictures of their projects. Since everyone is still in the early stages of their internships, this week I won't be doing much. But I'm taking this time to get an idea of what some people are doing, and I'm getting super excited!

Blog 11

I think teachers make students write research papers to expand our knowledge. In this class, our research papers are making an academic connection to our service projects, which is also giving us valued information to use when we are actually in the field.
When it comes to collecting information for the first draft of the paper, I usually hand write all my notes from my sources first. It’s always a huge force but its a lot easier for me to remember and absorb the information enough to spit it back out to write a paper.
Looking back to the classroom portion of this class I guess I’ve learned a little about myself, after doing all of those reflections. Although I feel like the majority of it wasn’t things learned, more just putting a name to my collaborative habits and leadership tactics, and comparing them to others.
Since I’m spending at least a quarter of a year in a nonenglish speaking country with a completely different social etiquette than that in the US communication will definitely be the largest challenge I face… hopefully… So I will definitely keep some of the different leadership and “group interacting” tactics in mind.
My favorite part of this class has definitely been the “okay go do it and get it done” approach from Dr. Bent. We definitely had freedom, but not too much, and since it’s last quarter for seniors, I think it was for the better.

Blog 10

So far I think my biggest frustration has been topic selection for my research paper. Each database has thousands of sources on every topic, so that made pinpointing specific articles and details sort of a challenge. My biggest time waster, besides getting distracted and then unmotivated in class has been the leadership reflection readings we did as weekly assignments. For me it just felt like busy work, with each new reading I honestly felt like I could have used my submission from the week before and answer the same questions. It just seemed repetitive, asking the same questions over and over again. Stress-wise I’ve shockingly been dealing pretty well, the fact that I only have four classes has to do with this since this is the only one I have a decent amount of work in ever.  The largest stressor I’ve had so far is the research paper that’s due on Thursday… research papers have never exactly been my thing, considering that I just turned a thesis paper in from last semester in today. But, I’m going to manage my time this week the best I can.. Aiming to turn it in on time. For the most part, I’ve stayed ahead of all my work, but I wish I had more notes on articles and a solid idea of exactly what I’m writing about. To prevent this I could have maybe been less distracted in class, but honestly, I’m not complaining about the amount of prep I’ve done for this paper, considering it’s more than what I’d normally have done.

Blog Post # 9: Belonging-Motivation-Checking In-Reflection

In the past,  around this time of year, I lose about 95% of the motivation I barely have in the first place regarding school. This year is a little different, even though coming to school at 9:21 for a whopping four classes a day is rather painful, the threat of not graduating if I fail this class is the only thing getting me through the end of the year. With that being said, I guess I’m pretty on top of all of my work with so little time left- for me I guess. I’ve read about 50 pages of my book and have taken notes on six different journal articles for my research paper that are due before these two weeks are over and we head into the field for our projects. I honestly wish I was more caught up on reading and further along on my paper, but I’m somewhat proud of myself for staying on track this well so far. Documenting all the different projects during the time the in the field is something I’m pretty excited about. I’m mostly excited to put the final product together so Dr. Bent will be able to use it as a portfolio for this class, and also having it count for my contribution to the community.
At this point, I’m convinced reflecting has something to do keeping me on track since I’ve haven't been able to keep up in school for the life of me for the past two years now. So yes. I think reflecting has something to do with the promotion of learning to us painfully unmotivated seniors.

Leader

A leader I admire is my mom. I consider her to be an effective leader because of all she can do while juggling so much on a day to day basis. She balances her priorities and time, between family and work.
The best leadership experience I've had was helping out with a youth basketball clinic a few years back. While working with some of the younger girls, I used connective leadership, because I was able to relate to the girls thinking back to what I was taught when I was their age going to these clinics. As strategies of connective leadership for correcting some of the technical errors, they were making in their footwork. I would relate to them by agreeing that the right way to do certain footwork felt weird, but I then provided reasoning to why the correct way was more efficient. I think what enhanced my abilities to connect with the younger players and teach them was my experience playing basketball in the same program.